Over the Edge
by Emmy-loo
Summary: Jack's death has left Alex standing on a precipice. But it's something else that pushes him over the edge. Sequel to "No Signs of Weakness" and prequel to "Reeducation."
1. Chapter 1

Not a happy story; don't get your hopes up. I hope you like it nonetheless.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.**

* * *

Alex wasn't quiet sure what had woken him up. The yacht was rolling calmly, the slight movement peaceful rather than sickening. He didn't feel ill anyway, just wide awake. He sat up at rubbed at his eyes with a yawn.

He lifted his feet out of the bed and put them on the carpeted floor. He could smell the salty sweetness of the Mediterranean even from inside his cabin.

He still hadn't figured out why he was there. When Sabina had invited him, a vacation had been the very last thing on his mind. Jack was dead. Who was he to have fun? But she had convinced him, even bringing her parents for a visit. Mrs Pleasure had taken one look at him and decided that he didn't have a choice in the matter.

So there he was, on the Pleasure's yacht off the south of France. Sabina had tried talking him into swimming a few times, but he politely declined. His back was still sore. He didn't like to think what the salt water would feel like. And he had yet to explain to the Pleasures exactly what had happened. They knew Jack was dead—but they didn't know that it was Alex's fault. So in hopes of avoiding the awkward questions that would come with a swim, he mostly slept on deck or played cards with Mr Pleasure. He had to admit, it was very relaxing. It was almost as if he had sailed away from all of his troubles.

But he wasn't so naïve. He knew it was only a matter of time before MI6 came back for him. Once his injuries were fully healed—or at the very least, no longer debilitating—he would be back on missions before he had time to blink.

He made his way out of his cramped cabin and onto the deck, hoping some fresh air would help clear his mind so he could fall asleep again; hoping some fresh air would fight away the nightmares.

Jack was dead. The realization kept striking him, lying like a ton of bricks on his chest. Without her, he didn't know where he would _live_; let alone how he would _survive_. The thought of staying in his old house all alone wasn't appealing.

He had a feeling Blunt wouldn't follow through on his threat to put Alex in a home...there would be too many people to notice when he disappeared; too many people who would care. They would be liabilities—security threats. He couldn't see them appointing another guardian. Who would they subject to that? It was more convenient to leave him with no one at all.

He would live alone in his haunted house, with only Jack's and Ian's ghosts for company.

He was standing by the yacht's railing when he heard something; something deep, rumbling from within the boat. His hands tightened around the railing, his muscles reacting instinctively. It took his brain another second to catch up. He knew that sound.

An instant later, the whole world was in flames.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.**

* * *

"Wake up, Alex."

Something in Alex's mind clicked. He tried to pry his eyes open, blinking back the sudden flood of light. He gave up and closed them with a groan of pain.

He choked out a groan. "My arms..."

"Yes. Your arms are bandaged quite tightly. The shrapnel did quite a number on them. You came close to bleeding out, not to mention drowning. Thankfully our doctors were able to save you and give you a transfusion. You should be fine."

Alex didn't recognize the deep voice. He had to fight unconsciousness to even get words out of his lagging mouth. "Where am I?"

The voice laughed; a hearty thing that seemed to come from far within him. As childish as it felt to even think it, Alex thought that the man _sounded_ like a villain. And Alex's insticts were rarely wrong.

"Where do you think, Alex?" He sounded much too pleased with himself. "You're with Scorpia."

* * *

They kept the room bright. There was a bulb burning strongly right above his head, so that whenever he opened his eyes they stung and watered. So by and large he kept them closed, drifting in and out of consciousness slowly, mixing and imagining conversations and dreams.

He couldn't feel his arms anymore. Alex knew they were tied to the bed, but beyond that he couldn't do so much as twitch a finger. His legs were strapped down too, the heavy bands cutting off his circulation. He wasn't sure if he would be able to move even if he ever did manage to undo the fastenings.

He heard the door open. The Scorpia man—presumably a doctor—with the deep voice was back. "And how are we today, Alex?"

Alex didn't open his eyes, and he didn't respond.

"Still uncooperative, eh? Well, let me shut this light off. Maybe then we can talk."

The room was plunged into a sudden darkness that Alex could see even with his eyes closed. His eyelids glowed pink. He kept his breathing even.

"It's been several days now, Alex. I'm sure you have some questions for me."

Alex let a breath out through his nose. He did have questions, but he didn't want to ask them.

But it was only an instant before his lips betrayed him. "Why did you save me?"

He heard the other man laugh. "It was a close call. The bomb on board the yacht was meant to kill you, but when the men saw that you had survived, it was decided that you are of more use to us alive than dead. For now."

"Are..." he paused. "Did the others die?"

"Yes. Your friend Sabina's body was found by locals this morning. Or what was left of it, anyway. Such a tragic gas explosion, wasn't it?"

Alex finally opened his eyes. The man looked different than he had expected; shorter. "Such a _fucking_ _tragedy_," Alex spat, his words laced with bitterness. "Why couldn't you just kill _me_?"

The man shrugged. "It's been tried before, has it not? Scorpia does not make the same mistake twice."

"So instead you blew up three innocent people, missing me again."

The man opened his mouth only to close it again. He started to laugh, slowly and then more enthusiastically. "Oh yes, I can see why they wanted to keep you. You are sure to keep people on their toes—always an admirable trait, Alex."

"Fuck off," he spat. "You've been trying to kill me for ages now. Why the hell am I allowed to live now?"

The man's head tilted slightly. Alex doubted that he was even aware of moving. "There are three main reasons." His voice was calculating. "One: Scorpia does not waste opportunities. Since you lived, we might as well make use of you. Two: If this does not work out—if you betray us, or try to escape—you will now be easy to kill. Keep your enemies closer and all that. Three: We wish to provide you with a...unique opportunity."

"Oh? Please, do tell."

The man didn't seem to catch Alex's defiant undertones. Or, if he did, he chose to ignore them, for he continued on earnestly. "Alex, we are providing you with the chance to escape! Surely by now you are sick of being a monkey for Blunt and Jones; sick of being their plaything."

He paused. Alex didn't stop glaring. The man sighed heavily through his nose. "Alex, join Scorpia! There is more waiting for you here than you could ever find with MI6."

"And if I refuse?" There was a challenge in his voice.

The Scorpia man's voice went immediately from cajoling to cold. "Then we kill you. And we will not fail again. You have already been injected with artificially created nerve agents that we could decide to activate at any moment. Should those fail—which they won't—we will just find another way to kill you. It will be painful."

"Yeah, and that worked out _so_ well for you last time."

"Last time, Alex, you were not strapped to a bed and at our mercy." His voice was cold and dangerous, but Alex couldn't bring himself to care. "There is no need for a sniper when your victim is your captive. Trust me, some of our trainees would find creative ways to make you suffer before putting you out of your misery."

Alex's eyes flashed. "And what if I don't care? I've joined Scorpia once before. I couldn't do it then. What makes you think things would be any different now?"

The man shrugged. "I'm sure there are reasons that I was not made aware of. For some reason, my superiors seem inclined to believe that you will be more willing this time around. It is not for me to question their logic."

Alex found that he didn't particularly care either way. If they killed him, it would be an escape from this pointless life that he found himself living. If they trained him once again as an assassin, he could escape in a different way. Neither option was repulsive. He just couldn't bring himself to care very much either way. Suddenly, though, anger coursed through him.

"What's your name?" he asked, suddenly, to the Scorpia operative.

"Brown." His gaze on Alex was curious and calculating.

"Well, Brown, I think you can tell your superiors to stuff it. You killed my parents. You killed my uncle. You killed one of my best friends and her parents. You probably funded the lunatic who killed my guardian. Might as well kill me too—complete the collection."

Brown's eyes hardened. "Very well then, Alex." He stood. "Let me say, then, that I hope the afterlife is kinder to you than this life has been." He slammed the door behind him; an unusually visible display of anger.

Alex shifted. So he was going to die because he couldn't even move his bloody arms. Too weak to escape, he would likely die painfully—either from the nerve agents in his blood or savage Scorpia recruits who would be eager to show off who could be the most sadistic.

He sighed. "Well this is just fucking fantastic." There was no one around to hear him.


	3. Chapter 3

If you feel a bit lost and lonely at the end, then I've done my job properly.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.**

* * *

Somewhere in between devising desperate plans to escape and moods of soul-crushing apathy, he fell asleep. He wasn't woken by the sounds of voices—rather, an intense pain roused him. He couldn't find the source of it. It was simply everywhere, making his muscles clench and cramp and giving him a headache that threatened to burst out of his skull. He couldn't do anything to relieve the pain, because he simply couldn't move.

He pulled against his bonds and groaned, hoping that this would be fast. It felt like someone was pulling his muscles out from underneath his skin and then trying to put them back where they belonged—and whoever it was was doing a piss-poor job of it. His arms started twitching.

It became hard to breathe. His chest felt smaller; his throat tighter. The air he was trying to suck in was not travelling to where it was supposed to. Snot and saliva started to run down his face, only making the task more difficult.

And then the convulsions started. Someone was rearranging his skeleton like he was some sort of doll, taking no care for where things were supposed to go. Near-delirious from the pain, he felt himself come crashing down onto the table again and again, knocking any air he had managed to gather from his chest.

He felt like he was going to vomit. Moments later he did. He tried to turn his head so he wouldn't choke to death on it—what a way to go, he could think, even as he seized—but the sour taste remained. _Oh well...not like it'll matter much longer anyway...._

So this was how it would end. Death by nerve agent—somehow it didn't seem fair. But at the same time, it was a relief for it all to be over. Soon he would see Jack and Sabina again. The thought helped him to relax until he almost couldn't feel the pain anymore. He was floating away from it, toward his parents and Jack and Ian and Sabina. They were waving at him and smiling.

"Shit, shit, _shit!_" The sound came from far away. Briefly, ludicrously, he felt something pierce his thigh. "_Shit_! I'm fucked if you die, Cub! Stay awake!"

His body convulsed twice more before settling; limbs weak. He tried sucking in a breath to fill his lungs, only to find it nearly impossible. His wheezing seemed to alarm his saviour.

"Come on, Cub, breathe! I know neither of us wants to do mouth to mouth, come on!" He felt his head being tilted back. It seemed to help. The air made it to his lungs and suddenly he could breathe again. He felt his chest rise and fall.

"Good, good, you're regaining control of your muscles. Come on kid, breathe in and out. We've got to get moving. I've only knocked out the cameras for the next..." he paused, "three minutes."

Alex twitched his finger, and then his toes. Stiff and painful, but apparently they were in working order. He forced his eyes open as his rescuer undid his bonds. A slightly familiar face swam before his eyes. He blinked. "Fox?" The name seemed to take an inordinately long time to escape past his lips.

"That's me, kid. Come on, let's get out of here."

He directed Alex's feet to the floor. "I...I d-dunno 'f I c'n stand."

"That's all right." He slung Alex's arm around his shoulder. "I've gotten pretty good at carrying deadweight."

Alex hurt everywhere, and the only thing that happened as he attempted to support himself just a little was a small twitch in his neck. "Guards?" He wasn't sure if Fox could understand him—even his tongue was betraying him, his words emerging from his mouth slurred—but the man answered.

"Taken care of." There was something deeply satisfied in his voice. "Don't worry. As long as we can get out of the compound in the next two minutes, we won't be caught."

They made an odd pair, Alex's feet dragging on the ground behind him and his head sometimes lolling onto the older man's shoulder. Alex barely noticed when they made it to the open air; his lids half-shut and scarcely cognizant of anything around him. "Fox?" It sounded slow even in his own ears.

"Yeah?"

"Don'...don' let them get Tom, a'right? I...think t-they might," here he had to pause to take a wheezing breath, "try...y'know, f'r revenge."

"Course, Cub. Don't worry about it. Now, let's get you out of here."

Alex was unconscious even before the helicopter took flight.

* * *

Two days later, Tom Harris was found dead in his bedroom, a silver scorpion pin attached to his school jacket. Devastated, his parents quickly finalized their divorce proceedings to better plan their dead son's funeral. It was held quickly, with nearly all of his school in attendance. Tom Harris had been a popular, well-liked boy, his reputation only tarnished by his relationship with Alex.

Alex was not awake to go to the funeral. In a medically induced coma, doctors struggled to find a way to repair his damaged nervous system. The shrapnel scars on his arms would never go away—along with the long, barely-healed scabs on his back, they would serve as a reminder of the people that Alex had lost—but maybe they could repair his insides enough so that he could continue his day job. That was a request of one Alan Blunt.

But nerve damage was difficult to repair entirely. The head surgeon, after an exhaustive six hour attempt at complete regeneration, pulled down his mask and entered the hall just outside the operating theatre. He ignored the two large men standing just outside the door and instead made his way toward the woman at the other end of the dim corridor, speaking on a mobile.

He didn't bother to tell her that mobiles weren't allowed in hospital. He doubted it would have made a difference.

"...we have no choice, Alan. He will discover it eventually, and besides, he needs to know."

There was a pause, and when the woman responded, her voice was icy. "I know what you think, Alan. My recommendation does not change."

She hung up the phone after another moment and turned to the surgeon. "Well? Will he be all right?"

The surgeon sighed. "No. He'll probably suffer from nerve pain for the rest of his life. You've seen the effects on soldiers—the same thing applies here."

Her face softened. "What about his age?"

He wiped his face with a hand, scratching at his stubble. "It may help," he admitted. "He's so young...if he's lucky, his body will be able to fix what we couldn't."

"There's no telling, though, am I correct?"

He shook his head. "We won't know for sure until it happens. _If_ it happens."

The woman let out a sigh. "Thank you. Let me know when he wakes up?"

He nodded, not telling her that this also wasn't a matter of 'when,' but '_if_.' The boy had been a far way gone before he arrived at the hospital. The poor boy had taken on severe nerve damage. There was a fairly large chance that he would never wake up at all.

Rubbing at his tired eyes, the surgeon turned back to the operating theatre. He wasn't about to lower the boy's odds by lazing around.

* * *

This time when he woke, Fox was the only one settled around his bed. Eyes deep in a book, he didn't seem to notice Alex until he groaned.

"Here," Ben said, standing and reaching over to a side table. "They said you might be thirsty when you woke." He handed Alex a cup of lukewarm water, which he took grateful. It seemed to clear his head. What he remembered, though, was vague and foggy.

"What happened?"

Ben frowned. "You don't remember?"

Alex coughed and glared. "Obviously not, otherwise I wouldn't be asking."

Fox sat back down and let out a soft curse. He turned back to Alex with a stony face. "All right," he said. "This isn't pleasant, so prepare yourself."

Alex's teeth clenched involuntarily. If Fox, a seasoned member of both the Special Air Service and MI6, thought that the circumstances were bad, they probably were. And whatever had happened to him included some short-term amnesia—knowing his luck, it probably hadn't been a mild knock on the head.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Alex's eyes flicked up to the ceiling, as if staring there would help him to remember. "A boat," he said, slowly. He made a face. "The Pleasure's boat?"

Ben nodded, his face still grim. "About two weeks ago, that boat exploded while the four of you were on it. You were lucky enough to survive. They weren't."

Alex felt his chest clench, but other than biting the inside of his cheek, he showed nothing outwardly. "I…think I remember the explosion." He paused. "Yes. I woke up in the middle of the night, and went up on deck."

Fox nodded as if his answer made sense. "That explains why you survived. The bomb was planted in the engine room. The increased distance would've meant a lesser effect on you. If you'd stayed in your room, you'd be dead."

"Lucky me," Alex ground out.

Ben ignored him. "After that, as far as we can tell, Scorpia got a hold of you. They stitched you up—decided you were of more use to them alive than dead, I think—but after that things get a bit blurry."

Alex waited for him to continue.

"You don't remember this part?"

Alex shook his head. Nothing was coming back to him.

Fox cursed again. "Well, you must've pissed them off something awful, because next thing we know they're trying to kill you. Nearly managed, too."

Flashes of white hit Alex's eyes, but he remembered nothing more concrete than a feeling of crushing hopelessness.

"How did they try, and how am I still alive, then?"

Fox put his elbows on his knees, his face still solemn. "Nerve agents." His voice was quiet. "When I found you, you were nearly dead."

Everything became suddenly clear—Brown, the pain, the seizing; the acceptance. Ben was watching him with sad eyes.

"How did you find me?" he finally asked, looking away from the older man's pity.

Fox shrugged. "I was following you. Blunt doesn't want to lose his best, I guess. I'm only sorry that it took me as long as it did."

"Where are they?"

Alex didn't have to clarify which "they" he was speaking of. The omniscient, ever-present forces in special ops were nearly always around to debrief Alex. Mrs Jones, at the very least, was usually there. But today it was only Ben.

He grimaced. "Occupied. Plus, they told me that you weren't likely to want to see them."

Alex let out a humourless laugh. "They were right. For once."

Fox let a smile escape, but seemed to tense slightly—nothing hugely noticeable, but Alex was attuned to this sort of thing. It was part of his job, after all.

"I'm playing doctor as well. I think they wanted a familiar face to give you the news."

Alex tensed. "That bad?"

Fox shook his head vehemently. "Not nearly as bad as it could have been. You got very, very lucky."

Alex fought the urge to grimace. "Yeah, I've got brilliant luck, thanks."

Fox _did_ grimace. "Sorry."

There was a short silence. Alex let his head fall back onto his pillow. Finally, Ben spoke up again. "Thankfully, most of the acute symptoms are gone by now. You've got almost all of your muscle control back, but you may experience the occasional twitches—fasciculations, I'm told they're called.

"Because your exposure was so severe, you'll probably experience some lasting symptoms—but these aren't nearly as painful. They're mainly neurological."

"Such as?"

Ben rattled off a list, sticking up fingers as he went: "Well there's forgetfulness, an inability to concentrate fully, insomnia, bad dreams, irritability, impaired judgment, and depression. You shouldn't have any hallucinations, and it should all be gone within a month or so."

"Is that all, then?"

Ben gave him a weak smile. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, kid."

"Anything else I should know about?" It was meant to be sarcastic, but it came out sounding bitter.

Ben winced. "Yes, actually."

Alex's heart sunk even further in his chest. The pity was back in Ben's eyes.

"I don't think I'm supposed to tell you this. I only found out about it by chance."

Alex said nothing, but the look in his eyes urged Ben to get on with it.

"Your friend Tom is dead."

If finding out that Sabina and her parents had died put Alex's chest in a grip, the knowledge of Tom's death emptied it out entirely. He felt hollow.

Alex couldn't see, couldn't hear. Ben's sincere and stumbling apology went unheard as he stared straight ahead.

When the room quieted again, Alex blinked.

"Who," he wondered aloud, "do I have left now?"


End file.
